


Crying

by Agib



Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Near Death Experiences, Panic Attacks, Spencer is Hotch's Son, Stabbing, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26931232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agib/pseuds/Agib
Summary: There was a cop trying not to throw up out front.There was a cop trying not to throw up out front because he had seen a body.There was a cop trying not to throw up out front because he had seen and found a dead body.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945771
Comments: 26
Kudos: 179
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> <3 for my beta and freind, Dani, her Ao3 is: [Starsandsupernovae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandsupernovae)  
> And her gorgeous tumblr: [@reid-and-writing](https://reid-and-writing.tumblr.com/)

There was a cop trying not to throw up out front.

  
  


There was a cop trying not to throw up out front because he had seen a body.

  
  


There was a cop trying not to throw up out front because he had seen and found a dead body.

  
  


\----

  
  


_ Hotch had promised Spencer would be safe, with an armed bodyguard, a US Marshal, a safe house and weekly visits from the local PD, he should’ve been. He was only freshly seventeen, he shouldn’t have had to be locked away at a safe house in the first place. _

  
  


\----

  
  


There are lights and sirens and neighbours standing in their yards, watching the ordeal of the crime scene. Rossi waves him over hurriedly. Hotch has already left.

  
  


There is a body covered in a white sheet in the entrance room, and he ignores it unlike he had upon arrival, when he’d pressed two fingers to an empty, cold pulse.

  
  


There are books along the floor and stacked across the living room walls, all of them fresh and hardly read. None of the books were ever well-loved, why would they be when he’d only ever have to read them once?

  
  


There is blood on the floor.

  
  


There is blood on the floor and he thinks it must be the kid’s.

  
  


Emily waves him up the stairs and they treat the scene like he’s only now viewing it, and was not part of it.

  
  


The coffee table is shattered and so is the plant pot. There is blood on the floor here, too. He still believes it is Spencer’s, there is too much of it to be anyone else’s. Hotch hadn’t bled that much, and neither had Foyet.

  
  


Only Spencer had bled enough to stain the carpet irreversibly. All the other stains could be bleached away.

  
  


\----

  
  


“Please state your name and rank for the record,” Strauss directs.

  
  


“Derek Morgan, Supervisory Special Agent and acting Unit Chief for the Behavioural Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia.”

  
  


“And have you worked under Agent Hotchner the entire time?”

  
  


“Yes, and Jason Gideon for three years.” The woman has yet to take a seat, she chose to stand as she conducted the recorded interview. Derek tries not to profile this decision. 

  
  


“You were put in your current position to take over because Agent Hotchner’s ability to lead the team had been compromised, is that correct?”

  
  


He inhales sharply at the question, attempting to contain himself enough to answer without spite colouring his voice.

  
  


“Agent Hotchner stepped down so we could continue to do our jobs, unhindered,” he forces out.

  
  


“How would you describe his recent behaviour?”

  
  


He pauses for a moment to conjure an answer. Rossi had told them all the less they said, the better.

  
  


“Driven.”

  
  


Strauss responds with a stern talking to and heavy, manipulative language. If she could not reconcile a detailed enough account, Aaron could face charges or worse.

  
  


Derek doesn’t think anything could be worse than losing a son.

  
  


Strauss asks several more questions, and by the time she’s finished, Derek only hates the interview process that much more.

  
  


Penelope went before him and as soon as he’s done, he makes a beeline for her office where everyone is gathered, discussing the questions and subsequent answers.

  
  


“They’re asking stupid questions! You see that now, right?” She hisses. “They don’t - don’t care about what the Reaper _ did to them _ ? What he almost - oh Gods,” she breaks up, choking on her words. “They’re family,” she mumbles, letting Derek pull her into his chest. “This just isn’t right.”

  
  


She clutches the base of his shirt and lets JJ take one of her spare hands to squeeze. “They asked if he was unreasonable! After what happened, I can’t even - why would they ask that? Does she not know what  _ happened _ ?!”

  
  


“They do, it’s precaution, baby girl. They have to ask this stuff.”

  
  


“Why ask if a trained Agent was right to kill a murderer stalking both him and his son?” Emily said, not exactly helping the situation.

  
  


They hadn’t known Spencer was on Foyet’s radar until the day of, when they traced the medication lead to his address and found the room.

  
  


There were pictures organised in folders by location, Spencer on college campus, at bookstores, in shops, diners, at home, through windows, out walking, everywhere he could conceivably go, he was followed.

  
  


The pictures changed everything. The safe house was no longer that, it was a cage the kid and his bodyguard were trapped in for Foyet’s viewing pleasure and entertainment. If he wanted to, he could have killed them months ago.

  
  


Chances were, with the untouched meal and the abandoned letters, the missing clothes and the opened gun safe, he was tipped off.

  
  


Emily thinks it works in their favour, if he’s rushed he’ll make a mistake. Hotch thinks otherwise, when Foyet is cornered he starts killing. Based on the collection of photographs, Spencer was his next primary target.

  
  


“Foyet’s been watching him this whole time,” Emily says quietly.

  
  


Hotch is busy dialing the US Marshal that was assigned to watch over Spencer at the safe house.

  
  


“Sam, it’s Aaron. We’ve found Foyet’s location, but he has surveillance photos of the both of you. Call me for a meet location or we’re on our way to you.”

  
  


He closes the phone already looking prepared to leave as soon as Morgan gives the word. He hasn’t seen his son in months, nobody blames him.

  
  


“I’ll have them deploy another SWAT unit,” Morgan says.

  
  


“That’ll take almost half an hour,” JJ explains. Hotch leaves the room, his hand fisted into his pocket, pulling out a set of bureau issued keys.

  
  


“Go,” Morgan orders, and the team follows Hotch’s pounding footsteps into the parking lot.

  
  


“It’s a fifteen minute drive,” JJ calls as she climbs into one of the SUV’s with Emily. Derek has his own while Rossi stays behind to talk to Penelope and the other agents lingering in the bullpen before getting in his own car and following the trail of them from several cars back. 

  
  


They arrive at roughly the same time, Aaron ahead thanks to multiple broken traffic laws, and Derek on his tail.

  
  


“Go, go,” he whispers. Hotch pushes open the door, gun aimed, swinging around the room.

  
  


They find Sam at the base of the couch, bloodied and beaten. He apologises in a horrible litany as Hotch rolls him over and Rossi calls for medical assistance.

  
  


“What are you sorry for?” Hotch asks, voice even despite the fear rattling his frame.

  
  


“I - I tried,” the man says.

  
  


“Is my son safe? Is Spencer safe?” He asks, harsher now, but the anger isn’t directed to the man he’s currently supporting.

  
  


His breathing picks up, it shakes his chest.

  
  


“I don’t know how he got in,” he admits.

  
  


“Sam, I need to understand. Does he know where Spencer is?”

  
  


“I didn’t… I - I tried, Hotch.”

  
  


The medics show, and Hotch is moved aside as Sam goes quiet. He follows them out to the ambulance amongst the chaos, and the team trails behind, watching from the property line.

  
  


“Sam, does he know where Spencer is?” He presses.

  
  


“I wouldn’t tell him,” Sam says again. “But it doesn’t matter, hi - his bodyguard,” he gurgles something, coughing blood and being swarmed by the medics again. “Bringin’ him to hi - him,” Sam gets out. 

  
  


“What?” Hotch asks, his own voice strained from the weight of what he was being told.

  
  


“Sir, he needs to be sedated, please wait to ask questions.” One of the medics says.

  
  


They arrive at the hospital shortly after, and the team regroup minus Hotch. The Marshal service alerts them to inform them Spencer’s cell had been dumped and they had no way to track him nor his bodyguard.

  
  


“Foyet called Spencer from Sam’s phone,” Hotch says, already on his way back to the team.

  
  


“Alright we’ll get Garcia to trace it,” Morgan says deftly.

  
  


“He told him he was compromised and that - that I was dead,” Hotch adds. “His phone’s been dumped and he has a disposable cell. Anderson’s bringing me a car, we’ll meet back at the office.” Hotch exhales, and the entire team can feel the tension he’s been carrying with him for the past months come crumbling down across his shoulders.

  
  


“I’m hoping - God, I’m hoping he calls me to check if - to check.”

  
  


The team profiles the situation to the extent they always would. They discussed Foyet’s choices and related them back to his motive - getting off on fear, on terror.

  
  


“Witness protection had him in New Jersey,” Emily says.

  
  


“He had a head start, he could be there now,” Rossi adds.

  
  


“Garcia has a trace,” JJ announces.

  
  


“Okay sir, he’s bouncing between a few counties -”

  
  


“ _ Where _ ?”

  
  


“Fairfax county, I’m sending you the coordinates now,” she says. Hotch thanks her, hangs up and gets into the car Anderson pulled up in for him.

  
  


His heart is still dropped low in his chest, the state Sam was in could too easily be mimicked on his own son. Foyet wants revenge, he gets off on pain, which he would draw out of Spencer as well as Hotch, assuming that had been hisplan all along.

  
  


To destroy a family.

  
  


\----

  
  


“Agent Hotchner.”

  
  


“If you  _ touch  _ him -”

  
  


“Be gentle?” Foyet asks. “Just like I was with you?”

  
  


And suddenly he’s back on the floor of their old home, bloodied, stabbed, beaten. He had thought he was going to die that day, he had thought Spencer would be left alone for days.

  
  


“Why so quiet?” Foyet drawls, long and teasing. “You usually lash out when you’re frustrated.”

  
  


Now he’s picturing Spencer in his place, frail, bruised, bleeding out all alone under the watchful eye of a sadist getting off on his wheezy breaths.

  
  


“I’m not frustrated,” he says evenly. “You’re more predictable than you think.” He pushes the image of his son, his  _ child _ , out of his mind to focus half on the road and half on Foyet’s voice through the phone. “You didn’t know where he was so you made his bodyguard bring him to you.”

  
  


“You make me sound lazy,” Foyet says.

  
  


“Just another way for you to show control,” he accuses, venom seeping into his previously calmed tone.

  
  


He profiles him, in ways that only compliment his sadistic ways. He tells the man they will study him for years to come, and that he’s made his journey, his story. He can end here. He doesn’t have to harm a hair on anyone else’s head.

  
  


“You know what I’ve been thinking?” The man asks instead. “Spencer looks pretty good with light hair.”

  
  


He’d helped him bleach it at home on the last night they had before witness protection would keep them seperate until Foyet was gone for good. It went silvery white before calming down after a second dye. Sandy blonde, dirty, but not brunette. A far cry from his normal hair, and that was the important thing.

  
  


“He’s lost more weight. Scrawny little thing, isn’t he?”

  
  


Hotch squeezes his fist against the wheel and presses down further on the gas. He would pay ten thousand speeding tickets before he let anyone near his son.

  
  


“It must be all the stress you cause him. Sending him away from home, never seeing him after our little altercation in your apartment.”

  
  


He had no choice. Spencer was either put in witness protection or removed from his custody entirely.

  
  


“Tut tut tut, where’s the boy, where is he at - ah, there he is,” Foyet hums happily. “Oh, so many textbooks, does he get that from you? Back when you were a law student?”

  
  


He can feel tears prickling at the inner corner of his eyes, turning the road blurry. He presses the gas again, overtaking four cars before pulling back into his own lane. Reckless driving wasn’t a priority to avoid any more.

  
  


He can hear another phone ringing through the line, and Foyet places him on hold, leaving his own audio so Hotch has full range.

  
  


“Mr. Robertson, are both you and the boy safe?”

  
  


“Yes.”

  
  


“Alright, perfect. Open up the gate and I’ll come on through,” Foyet says, clicking the second call off. “Aaron,” he starts. “I  _ really  _ gotta go.” There is so much anticipation and excitement to contrast Hotch’s trepidation that when the line cuts off he only stares outwards at the road silently.

  
  


There’s a space of a minute in which he’s left alone with his thoughts. He thinks of his son, of Haley who’s moved on and was horrified to know her son was placed in witness protection after her ex was attacked halfway to death by a serial killer.

  
  


He thinks of how lonely Spencer has been these past few months, and of how strangled he sounded everytime their call time was up and they had to go back to separate lives.

  
  


His phone rings and he picks it up, seeing Morgan’s profile.

  
  


“Morgan.” He answers.

  
  


“He’s going to your house -” Morgan starts.

  
  


“I know.”

  
  


“I’m sending out a full tactical deployment, Hotch. We’re on our way.”

  
  


“Good.”

  
  


\----

  
  


“Foyet is calling Hotch,” Garcia warns. “I can get us on the call.”

  
  


She does and everyone in their vehicles leans forward to listen.

  
  


“Foyet?”

  
  


“Dad? You - you’re okay?” Spencer asks cautiously. 

  
  


“I’m fine,” Aaron answers in his softer voice that the team is very aware is only ever for Spencer.

  
  


“But, Mr. Robertson said that - oh… o - oh,  _ Dad _ …”

  
  


“He can hear us, right?” Hotch asks.

  
  


Emily and JJ exchange a glance from where they share a car. Morgan and Rossi share another while Penelope makes a small, breathy noise of sorrow for the realisation dawning in Spencer’s tone.

  
  


“Yes - yeah, I - Dad, I’m sorry.”

  
  


“Spence,” Hotch says, “show him no weakness. Okay? No fear, nothing. You gotta be brave for me, I’m almost there. Where’s Jim?”

  
  


He's eighteen minutes out and Spencer can fight all he wants, but Foyet is armed and fully grown. There's hardly anything stopping him from shooting down their oblivious body guard and going straight for Spencer.

  
  


“Mr. Robertson’s here too, downstairs. And I know, um, Sam gave me… th - the uh, the profile. ”

  
  


Of course he had. Spencer isn’t stupid enough to not dredge it out of the man.

  
  


“Is Sam… is he -?”

  
  


“No, Sam’s fine,” Hotch lies. He can’t put Spencer in the position where he would blame himself. He needs his head in the game if he's going to survive this.

  
  


“Aaron, Aaron, Aaron,” Foyet says. He can hear the grin through the phone. “Is this why one of your only other options was letting CPS take your boy? Lying to children has never been okay, Aaron.”

  
  


“Don’t listen, Spencer.”

  
  


“I have Sam’s service phone here. They sent out a mass message about his death, you can take a look if you’d like.”

  
  


“He just wants to scare you,” Hotch promises.

  
  


“Did you even tell him what this was all about?” Foyet asks. “The deal you chose not to take? You should’ve, Aaron, now he’s going to die without knowing the story because of your ego.”

  
  


“He’s just trying to get you to break. Don’t let him, Spence, okay?”

  
  


“All he had to do was stop looking for me. All he had to do was call off the team and you wouldn’t be here right now.”

  
  


“Don’t react.”

  
  


“ _ Dad… _ ”

  
  


“ _ Don’t _ . I’m coming, okay?”

  
  


“Junior G-man, right?” Foyet asks.

  
  


They can all hear the shift as someone else moves closer to where Spencer holds his phone.

  
  


“Y - you’ll hurry, right, Dad?”

  
  


“Always.” 

  
  


They can hear breathing that’s not from Spencer over the receiver. Hotch wonders where their body guard is, letting Foyet stand so close to his boy before he realises that perhaps Jim wasn’t alive, let alone conscious.

  
  


“I’m so sorry, Spence.” The team hears Hotch force out.

  
  


“It’s okay, you didn’t sign on for this,” Spencer mumbles.

  
  


Hotch chokes on a broken laugh, inhaling choppily.

  
  


“Neither did you,” he says quietly.

  
  


“You do something for me?” Spencer asks shakily.

  
  


Morgan frowns from the driver’s seat, understanding why Spencer is so upset in the moment, but questioning where Foyet was in the room and how the poor kid dissolved from his father’s stern emotional state into this.

  
  


It sounds like he’s crying.

  
  


“Anything,” Hotch says quickly.

  
  


“Tell Mom - tell her I say - I  _ said,  _ it wasn’t your fault.”

  
  


Rossi looks out the window, hiding his face.

  
  


Penelope makes another sound of grief, covering her mouth with one hand.

  
  


“Make sure she knows that y - you were here for me, okay? It’s not your fault.”

  
  


\----

  
  


There was a gunshot over the phone.

  
  


There was a gunshot over the phone, and all six of them heard it.

  
  


There was a gunshot over the phone, and all six of them heard it, Spencer made no noise.

  
  


\---


	2. Panic Attack + Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer made no noise.
> 
> Spencer made no noise after Foyet fired a gun.
> 
> Spencer made no noise after Foyet fired a gun and none of them can ignore the sound of a body hitting the carpet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 for my beta and freind, Dani, her Ao3 is: [Starsandsupernovae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandsupernovae)  
> And her gorgeous tumblr: [@reid-and-writing](https://reid-and-writing.tumblr.com/)

Spencer made no noise.

Spencer made no noise after Foyet fired a gun.

Spencer made no noise after Foyet fired a gun and none of them can ignore the sound of a body hitting the carpet.

Hotch tightens his fists around the wheel, sucking in a breath as tears blur his vision entirely.

_His fault, his fault, his fault_.

“Oh, would you look at that,” Foyet hums. The phone releases static in time to his movements. It sounds as though he is crouching, and Hotch tries against every instinct to not picture his son’s hebephilic killer so close to his body.

“He bleeds just like you, Aaron.”

“Stop,” Penelope gasps quietly through Hotch’s secondary line connection. “Oh god…” she whispers.

“ _Slow_ ,” Foyet adds. “And controlled. Must run in the family,” he says gleefully. 

Hotch despises the way Foyet continues to bring up his own attack, because the fear that had gripped his chest, despite how well he hid it at the time, is still prominent.

“He’s so much less than you were,” the man says. “Out with one shot, didn’t even hit anything fatal.”

A flare of hope sparks in his chest, still decrepit and weak at the knowledge his son had been shot - _shot_ by a murderer who _got off on pain_ , alive and conscious pain - but worlds happier than if he had arrived to find his only child dead on the spot.

He can hear the team’s audible breaths of relief at the man’s admittance, and he fails to remember just how close his son was to his team, too.

Penelope and JJ adore him, they thought he was the sweetest kid since meeting him. Emily and Derek found a companion in him, joking around the office and letting him fire off facts left and right. Rossi was on the fence at first but grew so much closer to the kid since Aaron introduced them and got Spencer to dial down how many questions, he had bubbling under the surface about David’s work.

The phone shifts, and soft breathing fills the line. It’s consistent with someone asleep, and Hotch loosens his shoulders as he realises it’s _Spencer_. 

Breathing. 

Alive. 

The phones must be propped up beside his head, because when Foyet next speaks, his voice is much further away. 

“I wonder,” he teases, “if this is enough to wake him up.”

Hotch closes his eyes tightly for several moments before opening them, disregarding the road almost entirely. Foyet is breaking his own profile. He doesn’t hurt people when they’re unconscious, he waits until he can watch the fear in their eyes. 

Though, he supposes hearing the grief filling himself and the team must be what he’s feeding off at the moment. 

Foyet adjusts the phone and Hotch hears a disgustingly familiar sound pierce the audio. 

It’s the sound of blade pressing through flesh and muscle and tendons. The sound of absolute pain and control that Foyet now holds completely in his hands. 

There’s a soft groan and then a raspy gasping noise followed by two choked inhales. 

“Ah - _ugh_ \- ah…”

“Spence?” He asks hurriedly. 

There’s a sickening squelch as Foyet removes the blade and Spencer cries out, heaving on air as he no doubt comes to from the pain. 

Foyet’s focus is redirected now that Spencer is conscious again. Awake to feel and endure the torture that will undoubtedly be pressed upon him. 

“I told your father I wouldn’t brag,” Foyet says. “But these scars I have can do it for me. I know how to keep you alive,” he threatens. “And as long as you relax, it’ll be the best par -”

“ - ad? _Dad_?” Spencer manages to get out. His voice is strained and taught in too many wrong ways. 

“I’m here. I’m almost there. Hold on,” he promises. There’s a lump in his throat and a boneless kind of terror gripping his entire body. He knows what’s going to happen, knows Foyet’s game.

He wants the release of killing someone - _Spencer_ , his boy, his _child_ \- but needs the craving of causing another suffering - himself and the team.

Foyet will let Spencer bleed out mere minutes before Hotch and the team could have saved him, just for the joy of it.

“Augh! Agh, _uhgh_ ,” Spencer chokes.

“Please,” Hotch begs. He can’t listen to this, can’t hear his son’s pain without devolving completely.

“Hush up now, you don’t need to listen,” Foyet says.

Hotch is met with the sound of the phone’s dial tone.

He swears, he throws his phone at the dashboard and presses his foot down even harder on the gas until he’s travelling at almost twice the speed limit. 

Panic grips his chest and squeezes like a python, leaving him breathless and heaving for air like Spencer had been.

“Hotch, you need to calm down, man. You’re going to have a panic attack if you keep this up,” Morgan says through their secondary connection. “Take a breath, or you’re going to crash the car.”

Hotch sucks inward, his breath jittering to a halt halfway through, his lungs not allowing a single, satisfying inhale.

“Hotch,” Prentiss says harshly. “You need to breathe or pull over.”

“Can’t - h - he’s going t - he’ll - he’s _hurting_ him.”

He’s seven minutes away from the house he once called home when he hangs up on the team entirely.

They were telling him to pull over and he just _couldn’t_ do that to Spencer. 

He hits the driveway going fifty and only stops an inch away from the tree in the garden.

He gives up on stealth long before he kicks open the front door with a crash, with his panicked breathing, cocked gun and car engine still running he has no way to pretend the element of surprise would’ve worked in the first place.

The bodyguard, Jim, is dead in the entrance room.

He’s been stabbed what looks to be four times, and it was done sloppily, likely while Spencer was upstairs and entirely unaware of the danger, he was in.

He almost throws up when he sees the blood in the living room, smeared across the stairs like someone had been dragged up or down them.

He follows the marks upstairs, tears dripping down his face as he goes, gun raised, flashlight from the kitchen lighting his way until he has the light from Spencer’s bedroom flooding the hall.

The door to his own bedroom, across the hall to Spencer’s is opened. He knows if Foyet killed him, he would have done it somewhere that hurt most.

Having your only child slaughtered on the floor of your once-bedroom seems to be the method of choice for the killer, seeing as the blood hasn’t yet congealed against the carpeting when Hotch catches something laid out across the floor from between the gap of the doorframe.

Spencer’s feet, one plain yellow sock, one of The Starry Night, by Van Gogh that he had begged for five months ago. He usually paired it with The Scream, by Edvard Munch. Blue and red was his favourite contrasting odd sock look.

Spencer is laid against the carpet, or his body is.

Blood pools in the contours of his collarbones and the divet of his neck, he’s covered in stab wounds, far more than Jim had been. These were slow, calculated. Hotch couldn’t stand to look, instead he ignored his son’s body in favour of aiming at the lump behind the curtains.

It’s strange that the man could be smart enough to destroy his livelihood, his _everything_ , and yet still be stupid enough to play hide and seek like an eight-year-old.

He fires, at least ten times, and waits as the shadow behind the curtain takes the entire railing down as he falls.

There are still tears on his face as he yanks the fabric back and strips the body of its gun.

He sniffles, holding a hand up to his mouth and biting down carefully, squeezing his eyes shut as he registers what his life will be without Spencer in it. Everything crashes around him and he hardly notices his surroundings until Foyet is opening his eyes and grinning.

He inhales sharply, taking in the bullets lodged into the man’s vest.

Foyet gets one kick in before he’s running for the hall, not checking as Hotch yanks the backup pistol from his ankle holster. He fires, hitting the man somewhere in his backside.

Foyet has his non-backup gun, and he fires as Hotch goes to round the corner, ducking in time to miss any blows.

When Foyet goes to run again, he tips the cabinet in the hallway over, and both of them go tumbling down the stairs.

Hotch hardly feels the pain, he’s too dead set on making Foyet _pay_. Dearly.

He should be worried that slamming the man’s head into a wall doesn’t faze him, nor does the rest of their brutal hand-to-hand.

Foyet puts up a good fight, but when he takes the upper hand, he pauses for too long to gloat.

“When I’m done with you, I’m gonna drag your bastard son’s body out here so you can bleed out knowing you failed hi - _argh_!”

\----

Morgan knows he should be waiting for the others to arrive as backup, only three minutes behind him, but he can hear Hotch from outside and he knows if he leaves this it could all be for nothing.

If not for Hotch, for the kid.

The lively, bubbly, excitable kid that roamed their offices on paperwork days and called in with obscure facts when his studies got boring and he needed a friend to talk with.

He enters the home to find a body, Jim, the bodyguard Hotch had insisted upon hiring for Spencer’s safety during his witness protection stay. There’s no pulse when he checks, but he can hear pounding from behind the couch and leaps up to break up whatever fight is going on.

He finds Hotch, beating Foyet’s corpse to a pulp. Beyond one, really, considering how much blood both of them are covered in.

“Hotch! Hotch!” He yells, rushing forward. “He’s dead. Hotch! Stop!” He wraps both arms around his former boss’ shoulders, yanking him back from Foyet’s bloodied corpse.

Hotch sobs - _sobs_ \- like the broken man he will no doubt now become. “Come on, stop it,” he says, quieter now, steadying him on the carpeted flooring.

“It’s over. It’s _over_.” He has one arm hooked beneath Hotch’s right armpit and the other hovers just above his left arm before coming to settle at his shoulder, squeezing gently. “It’s okay. It’s over, man.”

Hotch drops his chin to his chest and heaves on a choked cry before sliding his way from Morgan’s grasp.

Morgan thinks he’s going to go back to beating Foyet’s body, but instead he lifts one arm and pushes a sleeve back, tilting it just so.

There are crescent shaped nail marks running up and down both of the man’s arms, bloodied and already scabbing up.

“I didn’t do this,” Hotch says sadly. “H - he - he fought.”

Morgan stands as the rest of the team pull in, touching his friend’s shoulder once more before leaving him to survey the damage Spencer managed to leave behind, across Foyet’s skin.

As much as he hates to be the one doing it, he has to check on the kid. To take a pulse, at least. 

He sees the blood on the stairs, the broken cabinet, shattered wall hangings, all the damage from Hotch and Foyet’s fight. 

He sees those two endearing socks before he sees anything else. 

Before he sees the jagged rise and fall of the kid’s chest, or the widening pool of blood beneath him. 

“Spencer - kid, hey,” he tries. He crouched beside the body, which is no longer a body and now the haggard form of someone clinging to life. 

He presses two hands against the worst of the wounds, biting his lip as a soft _ah_ \- _augh_ \- escapes the boy’s lips. 

“I need EMT’s _NOW_!” He screams downstairs. “Prentiss, Rossi!”

Emily rushes into the room, leaving Rossi to handle Hotch who’s still crying downstairs beside Foyet’s body. 

“He’s here. He’s alive. I need help,” he says hurriedly. “Where’s the ambulance we called?”

“Penelope,” Emily says into her earpiece. “Two minutes out,” she answers quickly. 

“Help me,” he orders. 

She drops to her own knees, covering the wounds closer to the boy’s abdomen. 

“Shh, Shh, hey. We’re here, kiddo. We’re here,” she murmurs when Spencer makes another choked, guttural sound at the pressure the two of them exert onto his wounds. 

Hotch follows the EMT’s up and he cries harder when he realises Spencer isn’t dead. He grips his hand and brushes his tears away; tells him he’s doing amazing and to just hold on while they get him to the ambulance. 

He cries again when Spencer finally passes out. 

He’s administered pain medication and rushed to the ER for emergency surgery to patch up what’s looking like eleven stab wounds.

Hotch sits in the back of the ambulance and stays out of the way for the most part. He leaves Morgan to order the crime scene left behind.

\----

_There was a cop trying not to throw up out front._

_There was a cop trying not to throw up out front because he had seen a body._

_There was a cop trying not to throw up out front because he had seen and found a dead body._

\----

_There are lights and sirens and neighbours standing in their yards, watching the ordeal of the crime scene. Rossi waves him over hurriedly. Hotch has already left._

_There is a body covered in a white sheet in the entrance room, and he ignores it unlike he had upon arrival, when he’d pressed two fingers to an empty, cold pulse._

_There is blood on the floor._

_There is blood on the floor, and he thinks it must be the kid’s._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr is [@ag-ib](https://ag-ib.tumblr.com/)
> 
> my heart goes <3<3<3 when anyone sends asks

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [@ag-ib](https://ag-ib.tumblr.com/)
> 
> my heart goes <3<3<3 when anyone sends asks


End file.
